a quickshot for literacy

............................................. (christ of the abyss).......................................



i.
one foot in the present, the other in the future
water skis our parents fastened to us when were kids
our parents: we were so convinced their archibodies
steered the sailboat which became a speedboat
with an optional captain that rips us through the waters.

some of us choose air over water and woe to those of us
who’ve been bit by the vampire of travel,
we undead, insensitive, self-centered folks
who ward-off coming down from the heroin of experience
grandmothers on willed deathbeds take our problem personally.
the problem: air doesn’t hold-up skis and the future flies away

half our body with it, sailing over the vibrant panorama
the other half condemned to chase that black sliver and pile of flesh
just out of reach then just out of sight, racing into the bright abyss.

ii.
when jesus shunned his mother, she turned around and slumped home
and baked a cake for her other sons to devour after dinner.
don’t take him personally, ma, said james who was less troublesome;
james never multiplied stocks of wedding booze to the delight of winos
or let prostitutes waste perfume on his feet in the homes of public officials
and james left the dead men and children alone, to everyone’s lack of confusion.

that nice angel neglected to mention that the savior of the world
would ignore family values. everyone knows the family comes first
except jesus, who always forgot to wash his hands before supper.
mothers want quiet sons from normal pregnancies in comfortable surroundings
mothers want sons who remember to call home once in a while
mothers want grandchildren.

iii.
home is not place, a face, or feeling
but an interactive photo album
of images and smells before sounds
sloppily stapled to emotional response.

the white bedroom walls covered
in remnants of scotch tape
which once held quotes
don’t you see i just want my life
to be something more than long?
from less popular musicals
or green-brown judy garland
and a flawless terrier in a basket.

mouth running as defense
from supper table silence, god and man at table
are sat down, says the sepia wall hanging
that hides the fuse box.
god’s the only one listening to those plans.

frost coating the gray city
and damp overpasses where someone
spray painted romance in unreachable places.
how did they get up there. will we ever know.

the first pictures, faded polaroids
taken before the future breathed into
cameras; that runny past, now red
and dulled by sunlight. who forgot to tell us
blurred is not enough, but blurred is all we'd have.

(lhl)

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On the Cheap

I. I answer to a name, am known, and am not ordinary. I myself am too perplexed by the joy, wonder, and beauty of the everyday-- within and without. This vista has an echo. And shadows play between us.

II. The city is surrounded. Trees and fields. A road swept by wind. Here they make an excellent sandwich. I can show you where. And offer you how I know.

III. Now never was and never will be. As fresh as lemons, it smells all the time. And questions are the fruit of our imagination—as fire is to wood, keeping us warm in the cold. Pride the glow of combustion.

IV. And all would be fine if it wasn’t for this game of uncle. This game of cash. The trust in scarcity. Investment based on the future, remembering rainy days. Only... not enough winners. Tisk, tisk. An elite is built on why. Can everybody win?

r.z.

but now i'm back in the city

"Heaven stinks
from the gass it takes to get there"
--dan kahn


it wasn't the first time i cried that day
i had read a book of poems by Hayan Charara
most of them about his dead mother
wiped my eyes and drank some rum
then shot bowling pins with a .44 Magnum
life is funny
most everyone had gone to sleep but i was
out in northern michigan's crisp july air
i stood trembling looking up at the stars
every glint a thought my father never told me
it's not that we can't see stars in the city
we don't have them
silver teardrops exploding the night... why?
how cheapens, disects, makes ordinary,
solves riddles and is proud of itself
i'd much rather be the paper
cut by knowledge, understanding and evidence
heaven isn't a place, a future, a paradise
it is now

--vikingo

Broad Day Emission

I. Why is a broken question. It is a magic carpet that can only carry one seeker. And vital only to one the answer has very little body, is mostly abstraction. But how is the body, is in evidence in the flesh, is the answer around which forms the question. How answers why like scissors to paper.



II. I am in the apartment in the city after camping in the woods. The sounds are different here. Lot's of people out all night, so that the quite lull is in the afternoon. I've been sleepwalking.



III. I was explained Mormon theology on the banks of lake Cadillac while a new serpentine belt and tensioner got put on my car in town. Sometimes they talked like they were on thin ice, and other times with enthusiasm. But first we talked of travel, uniforms, days off, and women. "It happens," one said about falling in love while on mission, "but it tends to be frowned on." "I bet a lot of people ask you about polygamy," I said. They chuckled and shrugged their shoulders. When they said they didn't believe in original sin, they laid it out like like it was a flashy prize.



IV. I think children are the answer to all our questions, both why and how, all bundled up and wrapped together. Through them we imagine perpetuity. History a condition of the future. The arc of life could be seen as a sunset, the sun standing still, the earth going over backwards.



V. To be a snail would be like being trapped by a question, any question...a snail with a shell, kind of like wearing special glasses that only let you see one color, or when something moves, or if they give off heat. The paintbrushes are then useless. The notebooks, rubbish.



VI. Do you like saying new words so much that you can talk to machines? Do you have a future leaning perspective, then ye are nearest to God.




r.z.

so i guess i take my time

The lines on my face move faster
than on my brain, then on my brain
and in my spine i also search, you're welcome
But find no gold, no silver, only water and dirt
These days have been utterly perfect, my crops grow
Spirit tells me I have a spirit
Preacher tells me lies
I feel I've missed something everyone else has
Sadness lives alone, no one talks about it, like ever
Every time I try to try for what you have
I remember wanting to be different
I wonder not where the answer is but where I left the trail
I believe in less than nothing
People make me feel good when I have something to say
When I am occupied like a buzy street
Now that I have time to think, I forget what I think like

Hum

Where there are accordians

"Those are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others." Marx


Man is the glass without bottom
into which he himself pours God
drinks, refreshes, renews,
spills, and squanders, laughs
limitless as our own imagination
bounding with passion, desire, potential
shared, overlapping in the sea of humanity.



Do not ask the water to believe in being wet.
Without inside or outside, no need for postage.



On my planet we have an alphabet of divinities
everyone has their own
and like dogs of the same name:
Jesus, Ganesh, Odin, or Creator, or Perfection, or Infinity
these icons respond to the sound of their owner's voice
when called--ah, sweet echo within
as a seed carries the tree.



My favorite birds are the ones I see
who do not believe, just flap
their science is one of up
and down, food and not food
their science is for danger and safety
of vital explanations, of bridge building
and I am inside their song of proud knowing
of experience and evaluation.



Bendi. Flexi. Bend. Body. Brain.


..


"Ask not what you can do for your beliefs but what your beliefs can do for you." Swami Jon

all hands on the Calypso deck

"Man's end,
a mound of gleaming bones:
a flowering and a fading."
--Hamei


i've been diving for sunken treasure
seekers who say they've found no longer seek
walking tightropes through hoops
high above rotted nets wishing i'd slip
i see joy in her left eye sorrow in her right
it's hard to skate above all this lunacy
love feels like fire and love feels like rain
what keeps a bird in flight is not a matter of physics
but tiny invisible cables stretching from the clouds
i've not found many answers... only more questions
most atheists need a God to not believe in

"jesus is so strong i wanna roll him
in a joint and smoke him"
---a teen-aged aaron klassen

--eL vIkIngO

Putting on an Iron Shirt with Max Romeo

“I will praise any man that will praise me.” Shakespeare

I. As if there was something else, anything else--some Absolute now diminished or perverted, a secret, nearly lost and awaiting restoration.

II. Glory . All Glory be to Humanity! The feelers of joy and sorrow. The makers of meaning and imaginers. The us now. Mirror before mirror. Deep hearts loving like bees from one flower to the next tasting every story told, a curiosity never quenched--one abundance means every abundance.

III. Words wonderfully empty. TBA: sounds to be filled with action, forged daily in exchange.

IV. Show me in. Let us pray. “Hello Apollo. Hey Allah. Really? I’m an atheist too. What’s your sign? Govinda! What’s up? All praise JAH!.”

V. Faith is that cloud between the earth and the sun.

VI. It is not contempt or scorn Robert has for this world but adoration of our splendid accomplishments. For this. For knowing new. Thanks.

r.z.



"Love so God will think, "Ahhhhh, I got kin in that body! I should start inviting that soul over for coffee and rolls." Hafiz.

monday morning dry out in the zER0twenty1

"tis like another fall of man"
-shakespeare



i feel my body torn assunder...
muscles, joints, bones splintered
all the king's vodka and all the king's tomato juice
can't put blurry fury back together again
i live in your thank you and cross my fingers
can't quite cry with scales on my eyes
and concrete teeth biting off more than i can spew
i spent all night with the sweet science
dodging jabs and ducking hooks
punched rational thought in the kidneys
and put a cut over the eye of reason
never ask einstein how... only why
all the studies show that the bees are dying
they say we're next! i don't believe the honeytalk
i baked some bread using whole numbers and love
buttered the how side not the why
gonna wash it down with swallowed pride
they say plato is no longer a planet
guess that's an equal and opposite reaction
sat for a while with the july sun
felt the glory of nature all around
secure in the thought that creation didn't happen
it's happening! finches and sparrows rejoice
trying real hard not to make this a love song
for breezes, blondes, and butterflies
i stood with my toes in the andaman sea and said a
prayer turning the beach into my own personal temple
all this wonder isn't bought by chance!
i hereby renounce:
what christians have done to christ
what buddhists have done to buddha
what muslims have done to allah
& what scientists have done to science
take another sip of a Vincent Price bloody mary
and recover from yesterday's church

--vikingo

Sunday Night Prayer Meeting in the Sixty-aught-Six

"Numberless are the world's wonders, but none more wonderful than man." Sophocles

I. I go over backwards, on the earth turning, over my heels to hang from bare feet, passing through the dark underside of the planet. The sun, I first feel its light on the top of my head, then down my neck, till finally it spreads over my whole body--a surprise.

I run this way and that, throw stones, climb stairs, smear ink, clutch beauty, writing its name a hundred different ways, and reach up with both hands over my head, writing with fingertips rushing through the sky, passing through new clouds, empty air, cool clouds, dark, then heavy air, dispersing curling trails, and no clouds—this, my daily dive with knots of memory falling from my pockets from up here next to the chandelier down onto the mirror below.

II. Me, so precious, like you, vital, boisterous—a lava bucket; that’s a bucket spilling over with lava! How we envelope sound out through our ears and through our sight out through our eyes and touch out through our skin in the taking of lakes and continents, swallowing them whole with mountains and spiting out the bones—all the givers, givers of free and sensuous gifts devour us—our kin—hearts in mouth.

III. The soul breaths through laughter, through fan blades, turbines, propellers, flowers when they have opened and are full of nectar and shred and full of pride and power—in this, our kin full of light. Peacock dance. One bug with the sun in its tail flashing at stars as it hovers over the summer lawn. Then another and another, then all together fetching lovers.

IV. Thank you is not thanks or any tender, but our name—“Hello, Thank You. How are you? I am here.” I bow to the thank you in you. Thanks has never heard the puritans or the dogma--it is an empty hand, has never known work, never swallowed an obligation to love, never earned a value through difficulty, has never been strangled by the Christian abacus and its earnest penitent banality, has never been counted in the Muslim pharmacies, and has never had a place in Buddhist check writing. Sacred is what we, the thankful, burn. While others argue to rename. It's what we know as packaging, crumbs, the rust--the now dead part of the way something used to feel.

V. Science eternal! Refinement of mind. Bound to light, breaking containers--natural cause and big joy. We, us humans, exult! How we know is how we love—through the excitement of finding out, of penetrating the deepest mysteries--the ongoing going on. The temple is closed and the beach is open.

VI. Look! What is it? What do you see? How do you feel? Tell.

VII.

VIII. I see beautiful people everywhere.

IX. Yaaaayyyyy! Hoorayyyyy! Yaaaayyyyy!

r.z.